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I suck at more than just cooking. I am also an utter failure at general house keeping -hence the limited pictures of my domicile. I can proudly say, that for the past 8 years I have been working on my sewing skills and I am starting to see some improvement.

I grew up around people who sew- my mom and aunt were quite the seamstresses. My mom used to sew quite a few things for us- swimsuits, costumes, and of course there was a lot of hemming of pants (I am 5 feet 2 inches and she towers over me by a good inch). Recently, I was able to pass down some dresses my aunt made for me to me daughter. But I cannot honestly say that my recreational sewing started with them.

It actually started with a co-worker who was quite the quilter. I was looking for a hobby and was inspired by her work. That Christmas I asked for a sewing machine and all the stuff that goes with it. Later, I found out that these items are called notions. (Really-notions, who thought up that word. I still call it my sewing crap).

I decided to start with a quilt. Was I smart and chose to go with something easy like a 9 patch pattern—nope. I went with something similar to this. We had a cat, we had plenty of wall space to hang a decorative quilt and really, what could be so hard about cutting and sewing some squares, rectangles, and triangles together. Oh man was I wrong. It became very apparent very quickly, that I cannot cut straight to save my life. I am also very challenged at measuring. As you can see from the final results.

This is proudly displayed in the exercise room. Where nobody can see it.

I decided the best thing to do was try again with something a bit easier. This time I stuck to a basic patch pattern. While I was cutting and sewing my second attempt, I kept thinking to myself. “This is working, I can’t believe how straight this is, everything is lining up. When I was done, I laid the quilt and voila! Well at least this one was crooked but going in the same direction.

No matter how hard you try to straighten it, it just won’t stay.

My third and final quilt is one of my straighter quilts but that was because I had some help. I enlisted the hubs who has a much more technical background. He did most of the measuring and cutting and then stood over my shoulder and was for foreman for straight lines, watching to make sure everything stayed together. With two people working together, end result was a quilt that was straight enough to show other people… and a of squares that are upside. Oops!

I hope my collection of crooked quilts has amused you. I will share more of my slightly off center sewing projects in the future.